


Fight the Setting Sun

by orphan_account



Series: Post Sburb [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Post Game AU, Post SBURB, Strife - Freeform, y'all know how much i love that shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:28:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He learned a lot from Dirk, and wishes he could unlearn a lot of it, that Bro could just become that indecipherable, apathetic presence. The one that could never lose, would never die, and didn’t express honest emotion because it was weak. It’s different now, though. And sometimes he just wants to be a stupid kid with the perfect, awful brother again."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight the Setting Sun

**Author's Note:**

> "All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it /back./”—The Things They Carried, Page 25, “Spin”

“Fight me,” he says, staring up at his older brother. Bro had just come back from a grocery run, something Dave would do when he was younger. Something Dave would do when he was greater than he is now. Summer is on its last legs, throwing blazing waves of sun every day to bake Texas into the golden-brown of fall. Dave’s dressed appropriately, in a tank that clings to the sweat on his back like a second skin, but hangs loosely in the front because of how he leans forward. Long gym shorts graze his freckled legs when he moves. A month or two ago, he would have been nervous about displaying his scars, because he has many, and a long time ago, most of them were from fighting with his brother on the roof. Now, that’s only a fraction of the wound’s he’s been dealt, and the funny thing about freckled skin is that the absence of the little brown dots just make the pink and white tissue that much more obvious.

However, as necessity is the mother of invention, she’s also the mother of getting over yourself and making your brother look at your fucking scars. Necessity’s got a lot of kids; apparently her man’s never heard of a condom.

There’s a fan whirring near the window, and it catches the light, spinning it off and on Dave’s foot as the late sunlight spreads itself into the room, reaching in, a kid’s hand grabbing at the toys in the dollhouse. The sun vanishes, then appears. He can feel it on his skin, or he thinks he can. There a second, gone the next, flickering and warming his foot. His muscles are all in working order, but he feels like he can’t move. Bro is looking down at him, and barely three seconds have passed (he can count them without trying. He tries not to count them. He fails every time) but it feels like three hours. He can see the apprehension in Bro’s shoulders, which are usually his most telling feature. He knows this now, after meeting the younger version, who’s almost piteously under-guarded in comparison, who even Dave could tell had a kind of desperation about himself as he spoke, an undercurrent of need that made Dave uncomfortable. It was like looking at a combination of the best parts of Bro, and the worst parts of himself.

He learned a lot from Dirk, and wishes he could unlearn a lot of it, that Bro could just become that indecipherable, apathetic presence. The one that could never lose, would never die, and didn’t express honest emotion because it was weak. It’s different now, though. And sometimes he just wants to be a stupid kid with the perfect, awful brother again.

“Haven’t fought in a while, kid,” Bro says, and Dave can’t tell who he’s talking about. He takes a shot in the dark.

“Neither have you, but we’re both gonna get fat as fuck if we just sit here and do nothing, so like. Grab your sword. We’re getting this done, and-“

“Making it happen. Yeah, alright. You g.o on and stretch your pansy ass or something, I need to put the groceries away,” Bro retorts, dropping the bag onto the counter and starting to load the sodas into the dishwasher.

Dave doesn’t stretch his ass, or his legs, or anything. He paces nervously, holding the cleaved welsh sword in his hand. He hasn’t fought Bro since before the game. He and Dirk tried a strife, but stopped within the first five blows. Dave had broken his sword (just a shitty one) and the end snapped off and ended up hitting Dirk’s foot. Not skewering it, just sort of bouncing and hitting the shin with it’s side. Dirk had laughed in the silent way he did, shoulders bobbing and mouth fighting a smirk. He asked if it was a common occurrence.

Dave suggested that they stop for the day, and came up with excuses any other time it was brought up.

Bro finally shows up. He’s dressed in his polo and pants, the spats on the sneakers are buttoned in place, and Dave has little idea how the dude can wear that kind of stuff in heat like this. They stand there for less than a minute, just standing, sizing each other up. Bro’s grip on the shitty sword is loose, and his posture is relaxed. Dave’s grip tightens on caledfwlch, and in the next second they’re moving faster than the eye can fully catch. Feet on pavement, metal cutting through air and clanging together in a sloppy display of mixed styles.

Bro’s blade is thin, an instrument of precision, even as weak and awful and cheap as it is, and Dave’s legendary piece of shit is heavy and broken, but it’s a knight’s blade, meant to smash. 

It’s absent of verbal dialogue. Dave is on the offensive, swinging his blade with all the power he’s got in his arms, because Bro didn’t come up here for a fight. He came for a spar, a practice. After months of inactivity, he’d never push Dave as hard as Dave is pushing himself. From his loose shoulders, to the way he was holding the blade, to the fact that he was holding such a shitty sword in the first place instead of the fucking unbreakable piece of shit that Bro brought back because it was _lodged in his fucking chest,_ Dave could tell he wasn’t taking it seriously. 

So the former hero of time attacked harsher, trying to force the combat, make it tougher than he could take. He swung his blade until Bro took a decent stance, and he attacked, relentless, fast enough that each breath became a pant. His face became blotchy and damp from the exertion. His hair plastered itself to his forehead and his sunglasses, the metal joints loosened with age, began to slip down his nose. 

Bro was panting quieter, hunched down and adjusting his blade in accordance with each blow, not able to drive him back, but flash stepping around the roof as fast as he could. Dave had grown so strong, and so fast, and bro hadn’t been prepared. Dave could tell. He swings a blow from above himself, the kind of decapitating strike of a hero slaying a beast, arms taught and fluid in movement. The broken sword, white like sun-bleached bones, falls too heavily on Bro’s sword, and it shatters, splintering, and the force of the strike, and the shattering of the blade causes the man to step back, stumble, and fall on his ass; like Dave had so many times before. The broken metal bounced on the asphalt, and landed on Bro’s shoe.

There’s shock in their eyes, but while Bro’s—shade’s slightly askew, hat tipped a little too far backward—holds something akin to amazement, as though he’d pulled his face up from his fucking computer and found out his younger brother had been declared president of the world—Dave only looks horrified.

His mouth is slightly agape, and his shoulders are raised. Caledfwlch hangs by his side, held just a _little_ too tightly, knuckles white. Bro opens his mouth as though he’s about to say something, but Dave brings an arm up to his mouth, struggles to get a breath in, and chokes on a watery sob. Bro pushes himself up, reaches over, grabbing Dave’s shoulder and tugging him closer for a hug that they both feel is little more than blasphemy.

The sun is dropping behind him, tired and weary of the Texan landscape. It moves on, lighting up some other part of the world, leaving the last red streaks of light to watch over a  tiny, confused family and their shitty, broken swords.

**Author's Note:**

> I recommend The Things They Carried to any of you who haven't had to read it yet, it's a war book, sure, but it's a pretty good one and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
> 
> I think I might just continue adding things to this, call it a collection or something. Maybe I'll do a Rose one-shot, or I could focus on what happened in this AU to the alpha kids at some point. I dunno.


End file.
